This is especially today, when every major sports league broadcasts all games live over the Internet or satellite dish. Discerning fans can pick and choose games across the country. DVR and on-demand viewing mitigate time-zone difficulties that led to the so-called “east-coast bias.”

What does all that mean? Let’s say, hypothetically, your favorite teams was ripped by its roots and transported to a cultural wasteland. It means you get to pick a new one.

According to polling by Stephanus Tekle of the sports marketing agency Sport+Markt, cited in the book Soccernomics (which I just read), fans are migratory creatures. In China and elsewhere, a colleague supported Tekle’s data with several pieces of anecdotal evidence showing fans supporting a handful of rival teams at the same time. To paraphrase, the question is no longer which team do you support, but rather which teams.

Anyways, back to the point of the post. After a survey of the teams playing in the NBA right now, I have decided to pledge my allegiance to the Atlanta Hawks. This means almost nothing to the Hawks, as there is only a miniscule chance that I would ever purchase Hawks merchandise or attend a game. I probably won’t ever shell out any money to have access to their games, either.

However, the Hawks play the most exciting style of basketball in the league right now. They’re not the best team in the league, but they have athletic players at every position, a solid point guard, and fantasy staple J-Smoove. Two players are local guys (Jamal Crawford and Marvin Williams). They are underdogs – a quality I prefer.

Again, this means nothing for the Hawks. All it means is that I check their box score first. And I may change loyalties again. But I’ll be rooting for them in the playoffs.

In the end, the NBA is too fun not to have a team, even if it’s run by a corrupt dictator who likes making examples out of cities who don’t write him a blank check from the city’s tax fund.

I’m not sure this concept will fly with the co-authors of this blog, who were born Husky fans, are Husky season-ticket holders, and will hold those season tickets until they are shown with their wives after the first quarter of a Husky home game in 2062. They believe you only get one team per sport, and you’re stuck with them.

I think if you’re bitten by the sports bug early, then there’s really no chance to escape it. The co-authors tie Husky games up with other solid memories of their childhood. My only standout Husky memory (I grew up in Cougar country and my parents were both Zags) was listening to the Apple Cup at my friend Brendan’s house on a cold, cold Saturday on a radio in his living room with his dog Ellie. (If I remember, we played Nerf basketball during the commercial breaks.) But I was a Coug fan growing up.

Along those lines, I still follow some of the other teams that caught my heart as a youth – the Philadelphia Eagles and to a lesser extent, Liverpool (that happened in my 20s, but I was new to the EPL so one could say I was in my youth as an English soccer fan).

But the NBA presents a different problem. For those of us that grew up Sonics fans (which is just about every male who was an adolescent during the Kemp-Payton years), there’s a choice to make. We get to flex our rights as consumers in a free market to support the team that most closely aligns with our ideals. Or boycott the league entirely.

Of course nobody could stomach following the Thunder after what happened, but there are still 29 other teams to choose from. Of these, I’m taking the Hawks.

Stevie G and Xabi generally take the free kicks for the Reds, but against Portsmouth Aurelio showed what he could do with those two on the bench. A left-footer like myself, the Brazilian’s smashing free kick goal opened the scoring for Liverpool against Pompey. This effort came after he hit the woodwork in with an earlier effort.

Additionally, he served up a cornucopia of delightfully-flighted corners. He’s not so good when the ball is moving, so let him have a go when it’s still.

Fabio sends it goalward (PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

2) More flexible substitutions from Rafa

Rafa never makes his first substitution until around the 65th minute – even when a player is clearly off the pace. Against Chelsea, Albert Riera had a dreadful game and constantly gave away possession in the first half. It was clear to everyone watching that it just wasn’t his day – yet Rafa failed to sub him out for Benayoun until the 74th minute, which brings us to my next point…

3) More Benayoun on the pitch

Benayoun needs to play. It’s as simple as that. He can play anywhere – just put him on the field.

No Playing Time = Sad Benayoun

4) More focus on the league/less on the FA Cup.

We just lost Stevie G for three weeks due to a hamstring tear. Why? Maybe because he played four matches in ten days, including two FA cup matches against heated rival Everton.

This injury can be attributed to overuse, plain and simple. Rafa needs to prioritize matches – no human can play 60 matches a year. Let’s focus on the EPL and Champions League and let guys like Lucas, Ngog, and Babel handle the FA Cup.

5) Attacking formations at home

Even though we haven’t lost a game at Anfield, our home record is still atrocious. Five draws = 10 dropped points. We need to stop coming out with Torres as a lone striker and go for goals. Scoreless home draws against Stoke, Fulham, and West Ham just won’t do.

Sunday against Manchester City, Liverpool Football Club showed they have exactly what it takes to mount a serious bid for the Premier League crown. Down 2-0 at half, the Reds rode Fernando Torres’ heroics to an improbable 3-2 victory at City.

As my emotions are still buzzing from this thrilling encounter, what follows is a just a few disorganized thought that needed to be put to paper:

Albert Riera, Danger Man: How lucky are we to have a player like Riera manning the left wing? Every season, Benitez is adding two or three quality players and Riera is no exception. His abuse of Pablo Zabaleta over the course of the game likely led to the City player’s rash challenge on Xabi Alonso, which left him seeing red.

However Fabio Aurelio, playing behind him in defense, was dreadful.

Robbie – just…get out of the way: Despite Keane’s tally in the midweek, the Irishman still found himself on the substitute’s bench. And deservedly so. If Keane’s inclusion takes Alonso, Kuyt, or Riera out of the lineup, then it’s a bad move.

Not to pile on Keane, but he managed once again to block a sure goal from Torres, who was on a hat-trick. Granted the ball popped to Kuyt for the winning goal, but Keane’s been blocked more goals (two) than he has scored (one).

The Inspiration: Liverpool’s heartbeat has always been Steven Gerrard. Last season, if Gerrard or Torres had an off-day the lads had little chance of beating a top club like City. But today, with Gerrard mostly silent, we still had the moxie to emerge with all the spoils.

That being said, it was none other than Stevie G who set up what should have been the winning goal. He’s always had a penchant for the spectacular, so when he received the ball outside the penalty area City’s defense flowed to him. A little dink to Keane, who crossed to Torres – but the Spaniard’s lunging effort did not find the net. (Again, I blame this on a poor cross from Keane.)

Skrtel’s Sorrow: With the game in it’s final throes, Slovakian defender Martin Skrtel went down in a sickening heap after clearing the ball away. The injury appeared to be a torn ACL. Skrtel, an imposing, exceptionally tough footballer went down in obvious agony and had to be stretchered off.

Fortunately for LFC, noted Danish centre-half Daniel Agger is ready to step in and fill the gaps. But that doesn’t take away from the inherent sorrow of a season-ending injury.

So there you have it. A transcendant effort from my Spanish man-crush Torres and some opportunistic finishing from Kuyt equal three points. After today, I finally believe that we have a chance to challenge for the EPL title, this season. What an effort from the lads!

I’ll let the architect of this victory add the finishing touches:

“Our character and determination shone through in the second half. It was fantastic. We were made to pay for two mistakes but we went on to show a good mentality to win the game,” said Benitez.

“The belief of the players was the key to our success. I just told the team at half-time that we just needed one goal to get back in the game. Physically were are in good condition as well and the players are ready for every game.”

Constable Echelon

I don’t fault Hotdog’s love of Liverpool for two reasons:

(1) As he’s said before (and I believe it to be true): “You don’t pick your Premier League team, it picks you.”

(2) I think a big reason that most soccer types seem to go for one of the Big 4 (Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool) is that until recently those were the only teams you were ever likely to see on tv or hear about. If you were into the Prem before the last couple of years those four teams were your options.

Fox Soccer Channel has changed the game in that regard. You can choose anyone now and be assured of a chance to catch at least a third of their games. If you want to go a little deeper BBC Sport is a fine website (certainly a cleaner navigating experience than Soccernet), and every team has numerous fan sites of varying quality to keep you in the loop. (In my team Everton’s case I get my news from ToffeeWeb.)

The increasingly available EPL means that you don’t have to be the out of area douchebag that roots for the Yankees or Cowboys or Celtics because they win.

That said, here I would like to push for someone to adopt Chelsea as their squad. They are the most hated team in the league due to their free spending Russian oil magnate owner Roman Abramovich. He’s the 15th richest man in the world according to Forbes, and most certainly does not run Chelsea like a business. “Like Brazil is everyone’s second favorite national team, Chelsea is everyone’s most hated Premier League team,” offers Hotdog.

Abramovich is like George Steinbrenner or Mark Cuban in terms of his aforementioned willingness to overpay for players and his exceedingly short leash for coaches. All first year Chelsea skipper Avram Grant achieved last season was taking Man U to penalties in the Champions League Final. John Terry fell over on the wet turf in Moscow, Chelsea lost, and Grant was promptly axed. His replacement is Luiz Felipe Scolari, who headed up Brazil’s World Cup Champions in 2002, and most recently was the coach of Portugal’s national team.

I want someone to be a Chelsea fan because I get sick of listening to Liverpool, Man U, and Arsenal fans whine about how Abramovich’s loose wallet is terrible for football. Talk about the height of hypocrisy. Much of what keeps the Big 4 the Big 4 is the fact that they have the most money, and as there is no salary cap can just let the smaller teams develop talent before offering the lesser clubs lucrative transfer fees to consolidate the best players. “Man I love this sweet capitalism that keeps us on top, but curse Chelsea and their capitalism.”

Bill Simmons wrote an entertaining two part column about his experience picking a Prem team that is actually quite informative. I advise you to reread that, pick a few teams that sound interesting to you, watch a few games, and one of the teams will just speak to you. Lord knows he could use the traffic.

The Premiership runs 10 months out of the year starting this Saturday with a season that continues until May 2009. It’s the perfect thing to passively follow, providing you with a live sports option on weekend mornings as you prepare to go to Husky games, watch NFL, or do whatever the hell it is we do after football season is over. Also if you miss your game you don’t have to worry about someone spoiling the result before you get to the DVR because not many people follow it, and you won’t accidentally run into highlights on US tv. And the best part? No ESPN taking the joy out of it.

So get on board folks. This is your year!

And go Toffees!